Trust will be a critical asset in our AI future.
gettyWhen you think about what your company needs to win in the AI era, you might think about data, technology, or talent. All those things matter enormously, of course. But I want to suggest that the real “secret sauce” for organizations in an AI-powered world is trust.
On the one hand, of course, trust is how you get the data you need to power your AI models. If consumers don’t trust your company, they won’t give you access to their data in the first place. That makes transparency and a commitment to being a good steward of your customers’ data vitally important.
But trust isn’t just something that takes place between consumers and brands. Employees should trust their leaders — and leaders should trust their employees, too!
As things stand, though, this is an area where leaders are currently failing. Consider this: 96% of companies use spyware of various kinds to monitor their remote employees! That kind of surveillance culture shows how far we’ve drifted from the mutual trust we need.
The Network of Trust
Trust is something that flows through your organization in countless different ways. Each of us is really just one node in a bigger network, and it’s through trust that we strengthen the connections between those nodes to enable the free flow of information, knowledge, and mutual value.
To build organizations capable of withstanding the challenges of the AI era, we need to strengthen the different pillars from which trust is constructed.
We’re used to thinking about trust in terms of people’s abilities and skills. That’s because we sometimes assume that trustworthiness can be reduced to competence — if a person is capable of doing what they say, we think it makes sense to trust them.
This kind of trust in knowledge and competency is valid and important. But trust can also spring from our understanding of the integrity and benevolence of the person involved. We need both kinds of trust, not one or the other!
What matters isn’t just whether a person can do the things they promise; it’s whether they have the human values to care about others, act with kindness, and think about and prioritize the whole ecosystem of which they’re part.
The Power of Interconnections
In this light, it should be clear that trust doesn’t come from legalistic compliance with AI regulations and data-handling rules. It springs from shared values and powerful emotional connections between people — and from leaders constantly thinking about the whole ecosystem when making decisions.
This is where knowledge mindfulness becomes increasingly important. Building trust requires integrity that comes through integration. Leaders should actively connect first with their own values, then reach out to strengthen their connections to those around them by identifying similarities that bond us together rather than differences that drive us apart.
Self-understanding and self-knowledge is the key to enabling leaders to build real multidimensional connections with others and to winning and retaining their trust. It’s also the key to building a trusting organization — one in which employees trust one another and one in which people make smart and effective decisions that earn the trust of customers and everyone else in their ecosystem.
Of course, this kind of trust and integrity is something that AI models can’t provide. No matter how sophisticated they grow or how smart they seem, they’ll always be emotionally hollow. To compensate for and balance that, it’s up to us as leaders to ensure we and our teams embody trust in everything we do.
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{Categories} _Category: Takes,*ALL*{/Categories}
{URL}https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbooksauthors/2023/11/13/the-ai-revolution-makes-trust-more-important-than-ever/{/URL}
{Author}Laila Marouf, Forbes Books Author{/Author}
{Image}https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/6552496277942e607e8b2d8e/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&height=600&width=1200&fit=bounds{/Image}
{Keywords}Business,/business,Business,/business,business,standard{/Keywords}
{Source}Forbes – Business{/Source}
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